Hanging curtains are often used to divide larger hospital rooms into individual patient area or cubicles. They are useful in providing a patient with his or her own private cubicle when other patients are in the room or in higher traffic settings in a hospital or other healthcare facility, such as an emergency room or post-operative recovery room. Often, the cubicle curtains are attached by hooks or other means that are slidably mounted to curtain tracks attached to the ceiling of the hospital room or other healthcare facility. The slidable mounting makes it convenient for the curtains to be moved back and forth between an open and closed position so that a health care professional, visitor, or the patient may enter and exit the cubicle with ease.
Typically, hospital cubicle curtains are made from cloth or a cloth-like material. Due to the fibrous nature of this type of material, the cubicle curtains often become a haven for bacteria and microbial growth. Bacteria and germs are transmitted to and from the cubicle curtains through the air or by physical contact, often by the hands of a health care provider who did not have an opportunity to wash his or her hands after examining the patient and before exiting the cubicle. Many curtains are treated with anti-microbial chemicals to reduce bacterial transmission. These treatments have some effect on airborne transmission but are considerably less effective on contact transmission, which occurs on the edges of the curtain every time someone opens and closes the curtain by its edges.